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Does American Religion Have a Center?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Amanda Porterfield
Amanda Porterfield
Affiliation:
professor of religious studies at the University of Wyoming.
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Extract

Undoubtedly, there are many centers to American religion—many topoi around which the wide-ranging multitude of historical developments associated with American religion might be seen to coalesce. Among the several that spring to mind—commitment to family, gender negotiation, concern for religious experience, freedom, conscience, millennial eschatology, respect for the Bible, social reform, desire for salvation (and there must be numerous others beyond my ken)—I see the myth of the Puritans as a good candidate for premier topos. In recommending it as a central category for organizing multiple forms and dimensions of American religion, I do not mean to draw attention to the Puritans in the exactitude of their historical existence, but rather to the myth of the Puritans as religious founders.

Type
Forum
Information
Church History , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , June 2002 , pp. 369 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2002

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References

1. Richard, Drinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian–Hating and Empire Building (New York: New American Library, 1980), quotations from 32 and 463–64.Google Scholar

2. Pat, Robertson, The Turning Tide (Dallas: Word, 1993), 294Google Scholar; Ralph, Reed, Politically Incorrect (Dallas: Word, 1994), 137Google Scholar; both quoted in Justin, Watson, The Christian Coalition: Dreams of Restoration, Demands for Recognition (New York: St. Martin's, 1997), 96 and 97.Google Scholar